EXPLORATION. OF HUMAN NATURE AND STRENGTH Part-VI Smal 31. MARITAL RELATIONSHIP A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. — Mignon McLaughlin Introduction Marital relationship comprises patterns of behaviors and interactions by couples in order to maintain satisfaction and extend the duration of relationship. The impact of marital relationship varies across couples, yielding positive, neutral, and negative outcomes. Some ‘couples report high levels of marital satisfaction and have lasting marriages. Others experience serious problems and report that marriage contributed to their disasters of life. Marriageis notan answer, it isa search. It is a relationship within which change is generated by relating living together. It can produce growth, identity and a sense of rootedness. Therefore, it o be perceived as a trap, rather people need to renew and enrich their relationship ‘Scanned with CamScanner(i) Trust- Trust is usually built on mutual Tes] Developing a sense of trust means that both of the will not do and say things that violate the integrit (ii) Commitment- This is vital to amarri: granted, vitality can disappear from the relatio1 pect and acceptance of differences, rem will do what they say they will do, and ity of the: relationship. ‘age. When any one of the couple is taken for nship. Once a couple commits themselves to the married life, it will help them face crises as well as climb the difficult ladders of life together. (ii) Skills- Marriage as a lifetime process which demands that both partners be skillful at understanding each other, expressing needs, listening to each other, making decisions together, negotiating and managing conflict and having meaningful communication. (iv) Caring- Nurturant love exists, when meeting the needs of your partner is just as important as having your own needs met. To be caring means being supportive of each other’s growth and personal interests as well as caring for the relationship between them. (v) Reciprocity- “Do unto the other as you would have them do unto you.” This means exchanging positive rewards and strokes with each other. It means avoiding those experiences which may hurt your partner and have a detrimental effect on your relationship. Itinvolves appropriately performing various oles in the relationship and helping each other as each fulfills these roles. (vi) Effort- All the trust, commitment, skills, and care are not very productive without effort. Effort means taking time to work on your marriage. It means being willing to work together to develop a mutually satisfying relationship. It means participating in marital growth experiences to expand and enhance the relationship. And finally, (vii) Expectations- One reason for marital dissatisfaction is that couples expect a great deal from the marriage. Wives and husbands often have unrealistic expectations about what marriage should provide them. Most people expect their spouse to be a source of ional support, companionship, sexual satisfaction, and economic support or assi big order. The gap between expectation and perceived performance discouragement and finally, disillusionment whic ‘Scanned with CamScannerHUMAN NATURE AND STRENGTH marital relationship involves learning to share’ become more intimate through mutual self. ’ some helpful hints to assist the couples in EXPLORATION OF Hence, enriching and strengthening each other at deeper levels. ‘The idea is to disclosure and acceptance. The following are hae ouples sharing together each day; (i) Emphasize the sharing of feelings like joy, hurt, irritation, ii iati \d (iii) learn to listen and be leasure ete. (ii) Use language that expresses appreciation, an : ss e sent by your partner. Understanding the sure that you accurately received the messag' : importance of marital relationship, itis proposed to estimate the relationship of two couples asa practicum exercise. Objective ‘To measure the marital relationship of two couples usin, Scale and find out the effect of aging on couple adjustment Method 1g Lerner’s Couple Adjustment Plan and Design Two couples would be administered the Lemer’s Couple Adjustment Scale. A schematic presentation of the Plan and Design is given below. ‘Purpose of the Subj ‘No. of | Name of the Test ‘Nature of Setting administration pet Subject Administration To find out the | 74.5 couples: One Lemer's Couple | Individual Calm and dyadic Oey 4 | Adjustment Seale noise-free adjustment of | YU"S eis) environment two couples. coup Subjects The information about the subjects is given in following table SL No. Name Age in Yrs. ‘Years of Occupation: ‘Qualification marriage | ‘Couple | Sivani Mohanty 30. 4 Years Teacher, MA. B.Ed 1__[ Rajeeb Mohanty 33 Teacher M.A. BEd ‘Couple | Bijaya Laxmi Das 48 26 years ‘Teacher MSc. B. Bd. ‘Sanatan Das 4 __[-* “Teacher MA. BEd. Instrument ‘The questionnaire used for the assessment of marital relationship was “The Dyadie : Adjustment Scale” (Appendix-W) developed by Lerner (2005). The test consists of 22 in the form of phrases, questions and statements, each of which is to be responded by ‘Scanned with CamScanner‘Lalways agree’, ‘I almost always agree’, ‘{almost always disagree’ or ‘ always, 5,4, 3, 2, 1, or 0 respectively. Items relating to his/her marital relationship, of the time’, ‘more often than not’, score of 0, 1,2,3, »‘Toccasionally disagree’, ‘I frequently disagree’, disagree’ and doing so, the Subject eas a score of from 16 to 21 are questions asked to the Subject By responding to the question as ‘all the time’, ‘most ‘ Ot’, ‘occasionally’, ‘rarely’ or ‘never’, the Subject earns a or S respectively. Item number 22 consists of 6 statements relating to how the Subject feels about the future of his /her relationship. The Subject is required to accept any one out of the 6 statements to eam for him or her, a score of 5 to 0. Finally, the scores for 22 items will be added forthe coupleto provide an index of their marital adjustment. Thehigher the score in the test, the greater is the marital adjustment and happiness of the couple. Instruction The subjects were given the following instructions. After properly interacting with the Subjects, the Investigator said to them “There are 22 items in the test designed to measure your various behaviors, thought processes, and mental characteristics relating to your family relationship, Read each item carefully and choose which one of the six possible responses best represents you by encircling the corresponding number. You have the choice to either agree or disagree with the statement or give a response that you think is most appropriate about you. Please read the items carefully as some of them are phrased positively and others negatively. Although, there is no time limit for the test, it would be nice if you can complete the test in 45 minutes. Procedure The Investigator selected 2 couples, one young couple and one old couple, who are all teachers in high schools. The age of the young couple was 30 and 33 years and of the old. ‘couple was 48 and 54. All the four subjects are post graduates, ‘The subjects were personally contacted and were requested to participate in the test. They were administered the test individually in a calm and noise-free room in the school, Each subject was told to go through, and properly understand the phrases, questions and statements in the test. ‘Scanned with CamScanner, on the extent, the Subject disagrees or agrees with the content of the ~ does the activity in the question all the time or never, and the statement he /she : about the future of his /her relationship, he /she gets a score between y and a foreach item, Finally, the scores for all the items are added fora couple to find out their marital adjustment score. The Investigator had some informal conversation with the subjects to help them feel relaxed and easy before taking the test. After the Subjects felt comfortable inthe Presence of the Investigator, they were administered the test individually. During preliminary conversation, particulars of the Subjects like name, age, education etc. were noted down in the record form. Results The responses of the 2 couples for the 22 items in the Lerner’s Couple Adjustment Scale are scored and recorded in the Table 1. In the following raw data table, Couple-1 and Couple-2 are young and old couples respectively. The total score and the mean score of couple adjustment for each member of the two couples are also reported in the Table, The ‘t’ values are calculated to ‘compare the mean difference for the item wise score ofeach couple and also for item wise scores between the couples. The ‘t’ values are reported below the Table I. A graph is also plotted to visually demonstrate the mean of the couple adjustment score for the two couples. The graph is shown in Figure 1. Table 1. Raw data table Tem Couple 1 Couple 2 Tem Couple 1 Coupie 2 Wife Husband | Wite Husband Wife Husband [Wife | Husband 2 3 3 4 m2 3 3 5 3 4 2 2 3 4 2 4 1 2 3 4 2 4 2 1 2 4 3 S. 4 a Ss 3 3 2 4 3 4 4 2 3 3 3 4 3 3 4 2 3 3 5 2 4 4 3 5 a 2 2 3 4 3 4 ae lg 4 5 58 56 88 95 2.64 4.00 | 432 ‘Scanned with CamScannerPRACTICALS IN PSYCHOLOGY & Figure 1. Showing marital adjustment of young and old Mean Score Young old Discussion Itis observed in Table | that the total couple adjustment score for the wife and husband ofthe young couple is 58 and 56 respectively and the corresponding mean score are’ 2.64 and 2.55. Hence, the final couple adjustment score for the young couple is 2.60. The results suggest that the young couple is low in couple adjustment having scored only 2.6 from a maximum score of 5. However, the adjustment is clearly bi-directional as both husband and wife have similar degree of adjustment towards each other. The result of the ‘t test carried out onthe item wise responses between husband and wife wasalsonot significant. The ‘t’ valueis only 0.35 which suggests that with respect to different issues of marital adjustment, the couple movebetween occasionally to frequently disagree and hence, there isno extreme disagreement between them. Itmay be claimed that asa young couple, they may be in the formative years of couple adjustment, pr ‘omising a better couple adjustment in future. On theother hand, the total couple adjustment score for the wife and husband of the old couple is 88 and 95 respectively and the corresponding mean scores are 4.00 and 4.32. Hence, their final couple adjustment score 1s 4.16. The results suggest that the old couple is very good in couple adjustment. Their adjustment is also clearly bi-directional as the result of the ‘t’ test carried out on the item wise responses of the husband and wife was not also significant. The final couple adjustment score of 4.16 suggest that relating to different issues of ‘marital adjustment, the husband and wife almost always agree to each other. Itmay be explained ‘the old couple has appropriately realized the worth of couple adjustment in life through experience of married life. Finally, the graph presented in Figure | visually demonstrates in the couple adjustment of the young and the old couple. aaa ‘Scanned with CamScanner